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Saturday, 6 July 2013

Indian Summer

Thanks to Herryyadi for the request.

Indian Summer were a legendary post-hardcore band from Oakland, California, that were around from 1993-1994. They were pioneers of screamo, emo, and post-hardcore, and basically wrote the book and formula that would be used by countless bands to follow.

This band has got a bit of a blessing/curse thing going on. One particular song of theirs, "Woolworm/Angry Son" (depending on which name you use, I always think of it as being "Angry Son", but to each their own) has become THE song by them. With good reason, of course. The song is the perfect example of the dynamics that they and many bands after them would use. The song starts off quiet, with a gently arpeggiated guitar pattern, subtle bass line, and some light drumming in the background, while the vocals gently speak the lyrics. This builds up in a crescendo, and explodes in a cathartic climax of distorted octaves and pounding drums, and the vocals just fucking erupt in a shriek of release. This eventually breaks apart, and the band slowly recovers and enters back into a similar quiet part to the beginning, though as if the momentum from the climax was taking long, despaired breaths. They gradually build back up into another crescendo before hitting the song's true climax at the end, when everything sounds like its about to literally break, and the vocals just fucking erupt in a shriek of release It's powerful to stuff, to say the least. Other songs did follow a semi-similar pattern, though they did experiment with structures quite a bit, as well as quite a bit of dissonance and syncopation not found in "Angry Son". Their other songs are amazing pieces of music, I'm not trying to neglect them or anything. I know I'm kind of contradicting myself here by saying that all their other songs deserve just as much attention as "Angry Son" does, even though I just focused on that one song for the last paragraph. Just listen to them, I don't know what else to say. For me personally, they were integral in getting me into the stuff that would come after, and listening to them now is just as awe-inspiring as it was when I first heard them, they're that amazing of a band.

First off, very little is known about the actual band. They were around for a very short period of time, and were not very carefully documented. They didn't even have names for their songs (except for "Orchard"), all names given were assigned by fans, so sometimes songs end up having multiple names. Well they were around, they put out a 7", a few splits and made a few appearances on some legendary compilations. Most of these are very hard to come by now, making them quite rare. However, a compilation of their own was put out in 2002, which collected all of their studio recordings. In 2006, a live album was put out titled Hidden Arithmetic. It contains a live set they did at Pitzer College in 1993 (this only appeared on the CD version) and a live radio session they did. There's also a live set that did at 924 Gilman Street in 1994, but it was never officially released. I guess it was passed around by bootlegs or whatever. The discography and live album are what pretty much make up their discography at this point, since most other things aren't exactly floating around as freely. I suppose that's partially what makes them so intriguing. This band comes out of nowhere and completely reinvent an entire portion of underground music, and then disappear again. Even now, when their influence is being felt and appreciated, very little has come out about them, which I think has solidified their status as legends in this genre, thankfully. Indian Summer are probably one of the most essential bands you'll find on this blog, or at least I think so, so get to listening to the stuff below now. And enjoy, thoroughly.

A Stubborn Reminder...

Please remember, not everything on here is supposed to be free. Enjoy to your heart's content, but if you can, please try and support these bands by purchasing records, going to shows, buying merch, anything if at all possible. Most of them could really use (and deserve) it.